Plant database
A living library of African indigenous food plants — growing guides, nutritional profiles, local names, and market potential. Updated as the Shiriki pilot farm generates field data.
Grain · High calcium
Finger millet
Eleusine coracana
The most calcium-rich of all the major cereals — a small, red-brown grain that has sustained highland communities in East and Southern Africa for millennia, and is now experiencing a global nutritional renaissance.
About this crop
Finger millet is remarkable for one nutritional fact that most people find surprising: it contains more calcium per 100g than milk. With approximately 344mg of calcium per 100g — compared to milk’s 113mg — it is the highest-calcium cereal in the world. For communities with limited access to dairy, and for lactose-intolerant individuals, finger millet is not just a grain but a primary calcium source.
It has been grown in East and Southern Africa for over 5,000 years, primarily in highland regions of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. The distinctive reddish-brown grain is used to make uji (a thin fermented porridge common in East Africa), ragi mudde (steamed balls eaten in South India), ragi malt (a commercial health food product), traditional beers, and increasingly, ragi/finger millet flour for baking.